Telecom firms back standard phone charger in Europe — Top mobile telephone suppliers have agreed to back an EU-wide harmonization of phone chargers, the European Commission said on Monday, hailing the pact as good news for consumers and the environment. — The agreement by Nokia …

Dell Developing Pocket-Sized Device — Engineers at Dell Inc. have been developing a pocket-sized device for tapping into the Internet, people familiar with the company's plans said. — The gadget uses Google Inc.'s Android software, these people said. Two people who said they saw early …

China Bans Gold Farming — Trading virtual goods for real money has been banned in China, putting hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity at risk. — In addition to its ongoing crackdown on Internet porn, the Chinese government has declared that virtual currency cannot be traded for real goods or services.

PRICED TO SELL — At a hearing on Capitol Hill in May, James Moroney, the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, told Congress about negotiations he'd just had with the online retailer Amazon. The idea was to license his newspaper's content to the Kindle, Amazon's new electronic reader.

Facebook Selects New CFO: Former Genentech Exec Ebersman — Facebook picked a new CFO quietly, after its cloddish public parting with longtime top financial exec Gideon Yu earlier this year. — Facebook said in late March it was looking for a CFO with “public company experience,” …

Extending Google services in Africa — At Google we seek to serve a broad base of people — not only those who can afford to access the Internet from the convenience of their workplace or with a computer at home. It's important to reach users wherever they are, with the information they need …

Keeping News of Kidnapping Off Wikipedia — For seven months, The New York Times managed to keep out of the news the fact that one of its reporters, David Rohde, had been kidnapped by the Taliban. — But that was pretty straightforward compared with keeping it off Wikipedia.

A Call to News Publishers: How to Share Your Video — We're always looking for ways to enhance the way people consume the news, and we have some improvements planned over the next few months. To get things started, Google News and YouTube are teaming up to help news publishers build a bigger audience for their video content.

Google move paves way for Firefox on Android — Google's move to let software run natively on Android devices opens the door for a version of Firefox that can run on the operating system. — At present, Android applications are written in Java and run on Google's Dalvik Java virtual machine.

The Pirate Bay to Take On YouTube, Hulu with The Video Bay — Watch out Hollywood, another threat to your profits appears to be setting sail and headed in your direction. A site called The Video Bay aims to make pirated TV shows and Hollywood movies available in hi-def quality for streaming through …

Tech Rumor of the Day: Nvidia — Nvidia (NVDA Quote) is once again on the verge of cracking a mobile device market: smartphones. — Mike Rayfield, the general manager of Nvidia's mobile unit says he expects the company's Tegra chip to debut in a phone from one of the top five cell-phone makers …

Tighter copyright law could save newspapers: Connie Schultz — A recent series of investigative stories in our newspaper illustrated the best that journalism has to offer, which is why so many in our industry responded with mixed emotions. — My colleague Mark Puente unearthed a festering scandal …

Palm Pre Build Quality Issues Continue to Slide Out — So how's the build quality on your Palm Pre? My particular unit is solid, but I'm reading more and more accounts of people complaining about their Pre handsets. Some folks have experienced cracked screens. Others see issues with the sliding hinge mechanism.

Amazon.com cuts R.I. partners over tax — Net retailer says state cannot force it to collect sales tax — PROVIDENCE - Amazon.com Inc. cut ties today with its business affiliates in Rhode Island to protest a provision in the draft state budget that would force the company to collect sales tax, Providence Business News has confirmed.

A Day in the Life of 3G — During March and April, we spent a day testing the major 3G services in 13 cities across the United States. Verizon's service showed a combination of speed and reliability, Sprint's results lent credence to its ‘most dependable’ claim, and AT&T's network showed fast upload speeds in most cities.

Vodafone eyes T-Mobile UK bid — By Andrew Parker and Neil Hume in London and Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt — Vodafone is considering an offer to buy T-Mobile UK in an audacious move that would have huge repercussions for the British mobile phone market.

Facebook Nabs New Payments Director from Google — The Facebook Platform payments and monetization ecosystem continues to grow rapidly this year, and recently, Facebook has been getting more involved. A few weeks ago, Facebook started testing integration of its own virtual currency …